


Home Remedy

by Write_like_an_American



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Dad Yondu, Family, Gen, He tries guys, M/M, Or the best worst dad, Sick Peter, Sickfic, Yondu is the best dad, he tries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 19:20:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6437095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Write_like_an_American/pseuds/Write_like_an_American
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter gets sick. Only one thing can save him. Unfortunately, only one guy is capable of making that one thing, and that guy happens to be a blue asshole who wants him dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home Remedy

**Author's Note:**

> **This is a quick prompt fill for Chanelle, whose comments have been motivating me and making me feel all warm and snuggly inside. Thank you, you lovely darling.**

It began with a sneeze.

Not Peter’s – that came later. The sneeze that began it all exploded from the nostrils of a busty lil’ half-Kree, whose lung capacity was logically incapable of powering such a gushing torrent of snot and phlegm.

Peter suspected internal bioweaponry. At least, he did for the point-two seconds before realizing that their enthusiastic make-out session had devolved into a slimefest. By then, his higher brain functions were engaged in extracting himself from her, and all he could think was ‘ew’.

The Guardians were combing through the occupants of a dingy satellite-bar. The bar, situated in the galactic centre, orbited a star draining into the far-off supermassive. Its spiral of siphoned matter sliced scythe-like across the sky, swivelling in on itself like a DNA strand. Day or night, its pallid light drizzled the station in ghostly monochrome.

Not that the patrons paid attention to intergalactic timescales. Life here got measured by the changing of bar-shifts, the emptying of the fermentation vats, the constant chug of engines as vessels punctured the atmospheric skein. It was a dim and sleepy little place – which meant it was also _interesting_. Because why should such a hovel, the likes of which could be found anywhere across a thousand systems throughout the central galactic arm, be the rumoured favourite haunt of renegade slave-smuggler Doltrax Lacan?

However, Peter had little interest in such things. Not when he was cooped against the wall by a girl who had, until the aforementioned sneeze, been either kissing him with unrivalled gusto or attempting to decouple his tongue from his throat through suction.

Thirty spacebound years under Yondu’s tutelage had taught Peter How To Not Offend-Slash-Get-Yourself-Eaten-By Every Damn Species You Come Across, Boy. Thus, as his mental monologue incorporated “Gross,” “Ick,” and “Ew, it got in my eye,” he decided to keep it to himself.

Kree got iffy about things-percieved-as-insults. And when Kree got iffy, people got dead.

Peter smeared goop from his forehead. The girl stared at him aghast. Her violet irises swamped her pupils, pin-pricked in mortified shock.

That wasn’t good. Embarrassed Krees were fifty percent more likely to stab you with the nearest pointy object, with or without provocation – Peter had scars from a fork to prove it. This had to be handled with diplomacy.

“Give a guy a lil’ warning next time,” he said smoothly. Then he wiped snot off his jaw, rubbed his sticky hand on his jacket, angled her trembling chin to a kissable angle, and returned to the task at hand.

 

* * *

 

“This,” said Gamora, “is entirely your own fault.” Peter, swaddled in a blanket cocoon and interspersing snuffles with moans, didn’t have strength to argue.

“Bioweaponry,” Rocket mused. “There’s no other explanation.”

“Thas’ whad I saib.”

The four of them sat around the table – or Gamora and Drax sat _around_ it. Rocket and Groot were perched atop, the former because he liked to feel tall and the latter because he had yet to vacate his pot. They observed Peter’s pained progress with no little amusement. He shambled towards the cupboards at the far end of the kitchenette, thinking only of their contents and the relief they would bring.

His throat ached. His eyes ached. His nostrils ached – but there was so much snot clagging them that Peter didn’t dare rub for fear of dislodging a wad. Every step was weighted as if he lugged a ball and chain.

By the time Peter made it to the counter, the Guardians offering such flippant advice as “don’t fall over; Rocket’s got a camera and he’ll never let you forget it”, he was out of breath. Drax, entering the co-ordinates they’d been given into the _Milano_ ’s nav-system, shot him a steep-browed stare.

“Peter. I believe you have been slacking on your physical training. It is shameful to be winded so rapidly.”

“Drax,” Peter wheezed. “Shuddup, or I sneeze on you too.”

Drax straightened to his full height. Even seated, it was impressive. “Your bioweaponry would be ineffective. My species is immune to the viruses that afflict your feeble people.”

“Gee thangks.” Peter coughed, not bothering to catch it in his fist. “Guess a hallmargk card is too much to asgk for.”

“Forget _Hallmark_ ,” Rocket hissed, jabbing an angry paw in Peter’s direction. “He just coughed everywhere! I eat off that. ”

“You eabt off the coundter? Use a pladte! Thad’s disgustingk!”

“And,” said Gamora, catching him by the back of the jumpsuit before he could launch himself at Peter’s face and plug his nose with his claws, “you have a nanite-boosted immune system. As have I. And Groot…”

They turned to look at the miniature tree, who cocked its head and waved.

"Groot is Groot,” Gamora finished. “Anyway. The point is, we don’t have anything to worry about. Peter will be gungy and more annoying than usual for a couple of weeks, but we’re a team. We can get through this. If we all work together…”

Peter tuned her out. The cupboard door was an anchor, the knob beneath his sweating palm all that prevented him from crumpling in a feverish heap. And the shelves within… They weren’t empty.

Shapes solidified in fragments. Peter spied Groot’s favourite fertilizer, resting besides a vacuum-sealed pack of those purple fruits Gamora loved. Rocket’s jerky-sticks and Drax’s… _Rockets_ , stuffed the cabinets to either side. And there sat Peter’s favourite cal-cubes, the sticky ones which tasted of liquorice that only he and Kraglin could abide, crammed in one corner besides his last tin of Beasties.

But the canister he’d always kept besides it? That was absent.

Peter racked his brains. Where had he put it? Ever since his case of morning-gunginess became full-fledged flu, he’d been dosing up. One cupful a night, heated to body temperature in the on-ship microwave. Tasted like honeysuckle and beeswax.

Once upon a year, Yondu insisted he take a new flask whenever he embarked on a solo (despite Peter’s assurances that he was an adult, goddammit; and that a Nova-sanctioned medkit beat some old family cure-all, the recipe for which had been passed down since before Yondu’s ancestors discovered loincloths). All attempts to teach Peter ended in singed stubble and Yondu’s eyebrows doing that warning twitchy thing that anticipated a whistle. So the blue jackass had always made it himself too, staying up the night before Peter was due off and grumbling and bitching the whole damn way.

As if Peter asked for his help.

Peter scoffed under his breath. It turned into a wet, weak sneeze.

Nope, he didn’t need Yondu, and he certainly didn’t need his medicine. Peter slammed the cupboard door with more force than necessary. He could tough this out. No problem at all. Anyway, Rocket had probably nicked the canister to use as a back scratching post or something. Like all things that went missing on their ship, it would show up sooner or later.

 

* * *

 

 That night, Peter fell into bed – quite literally; he was only glad he calculated the distance correctly before his knees gave out. When he forced his aching, red-hot eyelids apart, the canister itself slid into focus. Propped on the bunkside table from where he’d been guzzling from it late into the night, soothing his sandpapered throat.

He must’ve just forgotten. Stupid cotton wool brain.

Denying his relief would take more energy than grabbing the damn thing. Peter made the wiser decision. He put aside his grudge against certain azure a-holes. Reached out. Moaned, as his chest compressed and phlegm crawled up the back of his throat.

The urge to cough struck like a zigzag of lightning; Peter tried to hold it in, tried to stifle it, but it was impossible. He coughed. His arm jerked. And the flask tumbled off the table, contents splashing the floor.

Five second rule, right? Only problem being that by the time Peter levered his sweaty, noodle-ish limbs off the mattress, a whole minute had elapsed. The medicine trickled through cracks in the metal floor-plates. He ran a finger along the edge of one and sucked it into his mouth. No point imagining what grub he was ingesting. It was fine. He couldn’t get _sicker_.

Although he sure felt it. Having the promise of salvation dangled so close then whisked away, was worse than not having it at all. Peter flopped onto his back, palms dug into his eyes.

“I hate my life,” he told the galaxy, in case anyone was listening.

This must be what addicts suffered in withdrawal. Dammit, if Yondu had him hooked on his freaky tribal drug, Peter would hunt him down and make him eat his arrow.

In fact, he might just hunt him down anyway. Hijack his warbird. Hold him hostage. Demand that he cook up more of his magical, marvellous, all-healing miracle-soup. And then… and then… steal back his troll-doll.

That sounded like an excellent plan. Not one that’d been whipped up on the spot in the midst of an agitated fog, brain half-melted from the heat of his fever; not at all…

However, Peter had this niggly suspicion that Gamora and the others wouldn’t see it that way. No, he thought, beginning the monumental struggle to his feet. He was freezing, although the thermostat screen kept telling him that his room was at the maximum recommended level for maintaining homeostasis in a Terran subject. He stole another blanket – and snagged the empty flask as an afterthought – before lurching for the door.

He had to do this on his own.

 

* * *

  

Finding Yondu was not a difficult task – at least, not in itself. What made it tricky was that Peter couldn’t sniff with enough force to slurp the mucus inside his nostrils where it belonged. Seeing as he had to use both hands to operate the emergency telecommunications device in the Milano’s escape pod, it wasn’t long before bubbles began to float.

“Ew,” he groaned, with feeling.

The escape pods were too small for gravity generators. Peter sat strapped to his chair, feeling like a toddler at meal-time, limbs and head buoyant. He had jettisoned into empty space. All screens were clear – Peter wasn’t dopy enough to forget to set his scanners to long-range and probe the chasmic abyss. Never knew what could be lying in wait, and he was hardly in a state to fight.

The ride was smooth as molasses. Despite that, he could have sworn he was suffering high turbulence; every twist of the steering column rolled about his brain in dizzy abandon, and his stomach lurched halfway up his throat. He knew he was too hot, even if he didn’t feel it: condensation beaded the inside of the windscreen glass.

This wasn’t good.

He needed Yondu’s magic-soup  _yesterday_. As yesterday was impossible, sometime before he piloted his pod into an asteroid would have to suffice.

That thought in mind, Peter activated the signal jammer he’d stolen from Rocket’s gubbins-drawer. (Not stolen.  _Replaced_. Rocket couldn’t complain, not when Peter’d left a note in exchange; a note explaining what he was up to and reassuring his team that he was neither insane nor kidnapped. He could only pray it was legible.)

He’d calibrated the device so it would reject the scanner situated on the Milano’s top deck, whose rad-signature Peter knew almost as well as that of the Ravager homeship. After a moment’s thought, he cancelled out all other frequencies as well. On the off-chance he fell unconscious before Yondu arrived, he didn’t want to be picked up by a Kree warband, or worse – mercenaries sent by the Gravarian Duchess regarding that little  _misunderstanding_  on her wedding night.

He punched in the next code, sweaty fingers skidding on the keypad. There. That would deliver his beacon to the  _Eclector_ ’s mainframe. Moving clumsy and slow, he adjusted the camera, squinting at the readout until satisfied his snotty, blotchy red face didn’t look too pathetic. Then he started to talk.

“Yondu. ‘Ey, Yond-duuu?”

There followed a long pause. Transmission time: the message bounced through the telecom warp-network, which pitted the quadrant with tiny rips in space-time. He knew it’d located the galleon when the screen flared blue and yellow.

Yondu’s mouth. It did not look pleased.

Yondu cranked the camera until it revealed the whole of his face – not much prettier than his teeth, and certainly no friendlier.

“Boy, you better have a damn good excuse…”

He stopped, processing the image in front of him. Peter, mind working in slowtime, didn’t notice Yondu’s face crunch in worry, then hastily smooth. He did notice that shit-eating grin though. It was big and crooked and familiar – and he must be really sick, because it was also the most comforting thing he’d seen.

“You look like crap,” Yondu announced, rubbing a chipped tooth to hide his laugh.

Peter tried to scowl, but that deep saturation of comfort and relief had yet to wane. He was really,  _really_  sick. “Gee thangks. You old fladderer, you.”

Yondu snorted. The camera frizzed and blurred – that or Peter’s vision had finally succumbed to the fever. But the next second everything waxed red, as Yondu snapped his fingers and the Ravager crew, who were swaggering around their stations and exchanging smacks, laughter, and insults, fell silent and materialized behind him like leather-bound ghouls.

“Look who it is,” Yondu sneered. “Our lil’ boy, all growed up. You got that four million you owe me? Cause otherwise, this gon get nasty…”

Horuz, closest to the camera gave his chops a pointed lick. If he were any soberer Peter might have taken this moment to reflect on his plan and realize how shitty it was.

“M'sick,” he muttered instead. “Real, real sick.”

“Ain’t yer guardians lookin’ after ya? Thought they was yer new family now.”

Peter didn’t consider that worthy of reply. The Guardians were like a crowd of siblings whose annoyingness increased in indirect proportion to their height. Or… not, considering Drax. And Groot: currently no taller than Peter’s palm but by far the least irritating. Although Gamora was less annoying than Rocket on occasion, so the analogy still stood… Sort of…

Eh, he was ill.

Yondu snapped his fingers again, this time in the direction of Peter’s face. “Boy? Don’tchu fall asleep on me!"

Peter was gratified to note that he sounded worried. Although of course, that could just be the fever talking.

Determined to prove Yondu wrong and keep his eyes open, he started recounting the points of his self-imposed mission – “Find Yondu. Ged soup. Shdeal troll-doll. Find Yondu. Ged soup. Shdeal troll-doll.”

He thought he was talking under his breath, just a little whisper to boost morale. But Kraglin, ratty face scrunching as he eavesdropped, turned to holler over the heads of the crew:

“Hey, he says he's gonna steal from us again!”

The Ravagers didn’t take kindly to that.

“Ain’t no one who steals from us twice!”

“Ain’t no one who steals from us  _once_! We still gotta get him back for that orb – at this rate we better get Thanos to resurrect ‘im so we can kill ‘im all over again!”

They surged forwards, a sea of seething, ugly faces. Yondu spread his arms and shoved his weight rearwards, digging in his heels to prevent the swarming mob from crushing the camera and him in the process.

“Listen, idiots,” he growled. “You bust the commlink and we’ll never find him.”

A pause, followed by a sullen murmur of assent. Yondu waited until the weight at his back had reduced, and turned to his new second mate.

“Horuz, prep me a ship. M’gonna bring him in.”

Peter, smile dopey, nodded and flapped his weightless hands. “Thad’s right. You bedder surrenber. You’ve godt no chance againshd Star-lorb and the Garbians ob the Galaxy…”

 _Clik-clik_.

Yondu shoved Kraglin’s fresh-cocked gun aside. They were shacking up. Everyone knew it, even if no one outright acknowledged it, least of all Yondu and Kraglin themselves. Peter had the misfortune of walking in on them several times during his youth; as a result, he knew more about the captain's bedroom preferences (i.e.,  having certain parts of Kraglin's anatomy wedged into Yondu's corresponding holes) than he ever wanted to.

It didn't matter how many times they decided to rechristen the captain's chair though. As soon as money or Peter were on the line, their relationship was all business.

“Stow it!” Yondu barked. “No shootin’ on the Bridge, how many fuckin’ times? You crack dat glass…”

He turned to his other side, and gave Horuz the filthiest look Peter’d seen outside of a mandingo match.

“Horuz, why ain’tchu movin’?”

“One of us should come with ya,” said Horuz. His eyes were piggy slits. Peter had to squint to make out his frown, eclipsed as it was on all sides by beard. Yondu grabbed a handful of that beard and yanked the big guy to his level.

“What’chu sayin’?” he hissed. Spit flecked Horuz’s whiskered cheek. “That ya don’t trust I’mma make him pay?”

“You know,” said Horuz with the stubborn certainty of one assured that they're invaluable. “You’re soft on –“

Yondu whistled.

“Say it.”

The arrow revolved an inch from Horuz’s forehead, summoning sweat to clog the greasy pores. Horuz shut his mouth. Yondu stepped back, satisfied, and another whistle saw the arrow zipping to his belt. Fifty lightyears away, Peter watched its flight, blinking at the red trails left on his vision.

“Yeah. Thas what I thought. Now the rest of y’all can fuck off – unless ya want me to bring him on board when he’s carryin’ who knows what contagion!”

Kraglin shuffled his feet, twitchy with nerves. “Uh, p’raps ya should take someone after all, cap’n. What happens if you get sick?”

Yondu planted his balled fist in his gut. “Shuddit! I made my decision, an’ if anyone else wants t’stop me they better speak now!”

There was silence – bar Kraglin’s wheezes, and the rustling as every Ravager on Bridge sloped to retake their seats.

Yondu turned to the camera link. Peter, half dozing, sneezed and wriggled his fingers. “Heyyy. Are you comingk to surrendter now?”

 

* * *

 

Yondu transferred the link to his chronometer. He kept it open for the whole journey into the  _Eclector_ ’s rusty hangers. That wasn’t surprising – of course the old git’d want to laugh at his misery.

Only he didn’t seem to be doing much laughing. Yondu headed doggedly for his warbird, barging every recruit who attempted to accost him with job reports and fresh client contracts out of the way. Watching the corridors swing with the movements of his arms was as nauseating as it was relaxing. Peter dulled his eyes to an unfocused half-mast, the sharp corners and geometric wall plates of the  _Eclector’s_  inner tunnel network merging into an endless rollercoaster. Strange, that it still looked like home.

“Hey Yondu?” he slurred. Yondu, halfway up the ladder into his warbird’s underbelly, glanced at the camera and swore.

“Hang on, won’t be much longer…”

“Didja bring the troll-doll? I ain’t accepdtingk your surrender withoud it.”

Yondu snorted and continued his climb. Once the heavy steel door had sealed behind him and he was striding for the cockpit, he deigned to fish into his underjacket and show Peter a flash of ginger hair.

“Ain’t never left it, boy,” he said.

 

* * *

 

 Yondu’s arrival passed in a flurry of movement, blueness, and loud and unapologetic cussing.

First there came the beams from his headlights, puncturing the eternal night and jarring Quill to wakefulness. Yondu’d been jabbering away at him on the comm all the way up until he entered lightspeed, telling him how he was gonna gut Quill and make him regret he ever thought about leaving – but the lilting, rasping cadence of his voice had lulled Quill to slumber better than any lullaby. By the time Yondu locked onto him with his tractor beam and sucked the pod into his ship’s hold, Peter had no idea how long he’d been out.

He had no idea of much, really.

Except that Yondu’s hands were cool where he pressed their backs to Peter’s forehead. He was cool all over, actually. Blissfully, wonderfully so.

“Fever’s broken,” came a hoarse mutter from above. “Thas somethin’.”

Peter, prone from where Yondu had dragged him out the pod, rolled feebly towards him and tried to snuggle his boots. Yondu resisted the pathetic tug of Peter’s hands. But he squatted besides him and stroked sweaty hair from his eyes, fingers lingering just long enough for Peter to revel in their icy kiss.

“Gotta bunk laid out for ya in the room. Think ya can make it that far?”

Peter wasn’t one to give up on a challenge. “Yeah,” he tried to say. It came out garbled. His attempt to stand ended similarly. Yondu, sighing with the air of one overworked (possible) and underpaid (decidedly not) hoisted him under the armpits and began the long drag to his sleeping quarters.

“This’d be easier if you was little like you used to be,” he huffed.

“You’re just getting old.” Perhaps it was for the best that stayed inaudible. But Yondu proved he was more than capable of hauling Peter about: depositing his top half in the bunk, before grabbing his legs and swinging those up too.

He wagged a finger in Peter’s face. “Stay.” Peter, tempted to disobey just to annoy him, was successfully incapacitated when Yondu tugged the blanket up to his chin.

“Too hodt –“

“Aw, hush. Issa new medical thing. Woulda been able t’buy more if ya hadn’t nicked that fuckin’ orb… But yeah. It’ll help ya get yer temperature back to where it needs to be. Trust me.”

And Peter did.

Yondu vanished for a minute after that. He might have been gone longer; Peter’s sense of time was skew-whiff as a Kree in Skrull-space. But the blanket cooled, as promised, and his sweat-drenched face dimmed from fluorescent to geranium-red.

By the time Yondu returned – dousing his forehead in drippage before slapping a cool cloth over his face – Peter’s shallow gasps had slowed and deepened, and he had the coherence to smile.

Yondu grunted, holding a straw against his lips. Peter sucked, tasting fresh water tainted by the rust of the  _Eclector_ ’s tanks.

He refused to admit he was disappointed. He’d get his soup soon enough.

Yondu plucked the straw away when he deemed any more would balloon his dehydrated brain. He placed the bottle on the table, and sat on the bed besides him.

“You’re heavy, y’know,” he said. “Damn lardass.”

To which Peter wanted to protest that he was one hundred percent bona fide muscle – but that was too many words in his current predicament. He made do with whapping Yondu on the thigh.

“Yeah, yeah. Enough of that shit.” When Yondu folded his hand back on his chest, Peter found he was incapable of resisting. While his bulk might be  _bona fide muscle_ , at that moment it sure felt like plasticine.

Peter pushed air through his nose, frustrated. He regretted it when gunge followed. Grimacing, Yondu lifted Peter’s arm and wiped it on the sleeve. Better there than leaving it on his face, he supposed.

“You Terrans,” he complained, glaring at the off-green mess as if it gave him personal offence. ”So…  _sticky_. Ya always were, y’know. Even as a child. Cryin’ for this, cryin’ for that… Droolin’ in your sleep; sneezin’ and upchuckin’ whenever you got sick… S’like yer body didn’t want nothing in it.”

He sounded pissy, alright. But there was a hint of a smile there – a tip of a silver capped canine, snagging on his blue bottom lip.

“M’guessin’ yer  _Guardians_  ain’t so good at playin’ doctor?”

He guessed correctly. They’d pretty much left him to care for himself, unsure of how to treat one less hardy than they were. Few space-faring species succumbed to sickness – the weak ones didn’t last long, given that the galaxy was an ugly melting pot of germs and poor hygiene. Peter got jabbed up with Xandarian vaccines at regular intervals, but his body always metabolized them rapidly – which he supposed he could blame on his parentage, as well as Yondu for not telling him about it earlier.

Still, the man made a decent nurse. Perhaps a little lacking in bedside manner, but who was without their faults?

“Nod as goob as you,” Peter managed.

Yondu slapped his cheek. “Ain’t yer nanny boy. Ya can’t come running home to papa anytime you get the snuffles.”

Space pirate admirals didn’t pull their punches, even around invalids. Peter’s head thwapped to the other side of the pillow. The disorientation was far worse than the pain, as his inner ears scrambled to make sense of  _up_  and  _down_  after prolonged exposure to zero-gravity.

Peter hurked and clapped a palm over his mouth.

“I’m gonna –“

“Nuh-uh! If you puke, I ain’t sponging you up –“

“Idt’s your damn fauldt –“ Peter croaked, before making good on his threat.

 

* * *

  

Yondu sponged him up.

“I ain’t no  _nurse_ ,” he said.

“Sure you aind’t,” Peter mumbled. He sat shivering and fully clothed in the  _Warbird_ ’s dinky shower stall while Yondu, stripped to the waist, sluiced water down his messy front and swore every time his elbows banged the walls. “You aind’t no nurse, you’re taking me bagck, and I’m only here to rob you. Let's keeb telling ourselves dat, yeh?”

The showerhead spurted in his face. “I  _am_  takin’ ya back,” Yondu growled.

Gasping at the glacial spruce, Peter swiped water from his eyes and sniggered. “Sure you are.”

This time, the showerhead didn’t retreat until he choked.

 

* * *

 

Yondu had to help towel him off and shove clothes on him too, which should’ve been more embarrassing than it was. Any potential awkwardness was minimized when Peter realized he was being poured into his old favourite casuals: the fleecy top and loose pants he’d always favoured for sleeping but which he left forgotten in a box besides his bed in the crew dorms when he made his escape.

“These are…” He plucked the fabric, lost for words. Yondu smirked.

“Commandeered all yer stuff, soon as you were gone. Was thinkin’ of burnin’ these. Or selling ‘em – they’re fuckin’ massive on me. I guess I’ll loan ‘em to you a while though, just so long as yer here.”

Peter’s mouth worked in shock. “ _Loan_  dem?” he sputtered. Shook his head in adamant denial – especially at the thought of Yondu trying on his clothes. “But dey’re mine! You can’b  _loan_  whadt you don’d own… Anyway, I thought Ravagers didn’b shdteal from eachudder?”

“You ain’t a Ravager,” Yondu reminded him. “Not anymore.”

There was a pause, during which the weight of what he’d said sunk in for the both of them. Then Yondu scowled and shunted Quill towards the bed.

“Go on, snuggle up. M’making that damn soup – for the last fuckin’ time. You better have memorized the recipe, because I ain’t doing this again.”

Peter decided not to call him out on the lie.

He might not be a Ravager anymore. But, as he lurched towards the broad pallet that Yondu had always claimed for himself whenever he slept on the  _Warbird_  before, he mused that in Yondu’s eyes at least, he was and always would be family.

 

* * *

 

If this were a perfect story, when Peter next clawed from dreamworld it would be to clear sinuses, comfort in body and soul, and Yondu bringing him breakfast in bed. Instead he jerked awake to grotty eyes and a migraine.

Or rather, he  _was jerked_ , by Yondu’s boot, which encouraged him on his journey from pallet-to-floor – albeit much faster than Peter intended.

“Ow,” he whined, rubbing his ass. Sniffed. “Your soup’s lost its magic.”

He did feel less gunged up, despite his words. But each pound of his headache reverberated like Krakatoa, and his limbs had been liquefied at some point during his nap. Perhaps Yondu’d finally made good on his threat to harvest his ligaments for the black-market organ trade…

Yondu scoffed.

“It ain’t  _magic_ , dumbass. I pound in a ton of herbal crud that makes ya go t’sleep. S’that that cures ya, not the soup – and boy, you look like you ain’t had a good night’s rest in  _years_. Which I know ain’t true, because the night before ya left you slept like a fuckin’ baby.”

That sounded accusatory. Peter, pushing weakly onto elbows and knees before daring the great hike to standing, repaid in kind.

“The fuck were you watching me sleep for, old man? That’s creepy.”

Yondu’s knuckles engraved their imprint into his scalp.

“Okay, okay! Not creepy! Just a lil’ weird. Sheesh!”

“Glad t’see you’ve got yer wits back,” Yondu growled. “Are ya sharp enough to escape?”

“Uh -?”

“Horuz’s ship is on the scanner. Jerkwad musta followed me – he’s been loiterin’ outside of range until an hour back, makin’ sure I don’t fly yer sorry ass back to the Guardians.”

For some reason, he didn’t make that sound preposterous. His chuckle was dangerous though, like the rattle of a snake, and a shudder trailed Peter nape to tailbone.

“M’gonna make him pay for that. Man's gotta learn not to question me…”

As many horrific tortures as that grin promised in its gold-capped, unflossed depths, Peter doubted they’d be enacted on Horuz’s person. Nowhere except in Yondu’s mind, at least. Horuz might have been the crudest, meanest, and cannibaliest of the crude, mean, and cannibalistic lot, but the old codger’d been kicking about in reds too long for Yondu to make good on his threats of offing him. But the captain was nothing if not a wily little shit. He knew how to nourish a grudge. Peter wouldn’t want to be in Horuz’s boots, that was for sure.

“What about me, then?” he asked, steering conversation to important topics. “You gonna outmanoeuvre Horuz and get me to the Guardians just to spite him?”

This was said with a hope that had to be admired for its sheer dumb optimism. Yondu looked as if Peter’d requested that he treat him to a luxury spa-day out of pocket.

“That fever fry yer brain, boy? You wronged me. You got a reckonin’ coming. I oughta sit back and let my boys take that four million outta you, piece by bloody piece…”

 _Oughta._  Yondu-code for ‘I’m talking shit’ – or so Peter prayed.

"You’re not going to, though?”

“Considerin’ it.” Peter knew himself to be anything but annoying. In fact, his company was a delight. Yet a tiny part of him kept murmuring that he had this incredible knack for pissing Yondu off. Jerkass didn’t appreciate his sense of humour. But whatever the cause – further words on Peter’s part would be adverse to his goals: i.e., leaving the  _Warbird_  with his fibulas attached to… whatever a fibula was supposed to attach to. In this moment, Peter discovered mastery of a trait it had taken him only thirty-seven years to perfect: keeping his mouth shut.

Yondu paced the cramped cubicle end to end, stroking his upper lip. His brow crunched in deep thought. “Before he gets here, I could rough you up. Make it bad enough, and he might reckon you’ve paid yer debt.”

Peter blanched. “No thanks.”

“I could throw you out the airlock?”

“Do I get my space mask?”

“Depends.” Yondu span at the extremity of his loop, pinning Peter with a stark glare. “I brought ya that mask, Quill. Didn’t ask nothing for it.”

“You made me count every single rivet on board before the electric storm!”

“That was cause you were bein’ a pest.” Yondu’s sour expression was marred, just for an instant, by amusement. “You really brought that bull about rivets turning into supermagnets when they’re hit with cosmic charge? Thought ya were smarter than that.”

“I was eight!”

Yondu laughed. The sound was soft, hoarse and genuine. Peter glared mutinously into his eyes – although there wasn’t much point being ‘mutinous’ when you were no longer crew. He realized his scowl had faded without permission and reset it.

“You were always a shit to me. Is it any wonder I jumped ship?”

A raspy snort. Yondu stood far enough from him that the light from the hallway – sharp and white and surgical, so different from the  _Eclector_ ’s dim red – highlighted every crease around his smirking eyes.

“Now you’n I both know that if I’d been that bad you’d’ve fucked off a whole lot earlier.”

Well… He wasn’t wrong. Peter sat on the bed, thin springs creaking, and gathered the thermal blanket around his shoulders. “Maybe I was just staying until I’d learnt your soup recipe,” he muttered.

“Which’d be a helluva lot more impressive if ya hadn’t shown up beggin’ me for it.”

“I wasn’t begging!”

Yondu’s eyebrows called bullshit. Fondly. As fondly as bullshit could be called, which wasn’t very; but it looked to be somewhere along the way. Peter cleared his throat and ceded the point with grace.

“So maybe that was sorta, possibly, begging. But what’s this? You begging me to come back?”

“You say that like I’ve missed you,” Yondu said, straightfaced. Peter, as versed in his tells as any living creature, couldn’t determine whether he was serious. “Nah, this is me being nice. I’m informin’ ya that you got…” He checked his wristpiece. “…Fifteen minutes before Horuz gets here. I gave him the okay to approach before I woke ya up.”

Peter’s jaw dropped. “Why would you do that?” A question which din’t need answering – although Peter’s mind filled the blanks regardless.

_Orb. Stone. Trolldoll._

Yondu showed his canines. “And I’m yer guard. So don’t‘chu even think of running, yeah? You’re sitting pretty until the cavalry arrive.”

Oh God. He wasn’t joking. Yondu wouldn’t skimp on security – he knew all Peter’s tricks. Heck, he taught him most of them himself! There was no question about it; Peter was doomed.

Peter nodded in defeat. He wondered if it was too late to repent for his myriad sins so he’d have a chance of seeing the pearly gates. Seeing  _mom._

“Right.” Yondu drew a pair of cuffs from his trenchcoat – the antique, non-magnetic sort that nobody used except Terrans. He glared until Peter turned around and presented his wrists. “See ya back home, boy. If yer face ain’t too beat for me to recognize, that is.”

Then he walked out. He completely neglected to shut the door.

Peter, who’d been expecting to be stowed under lock, key, and Yondu’s watchful gaze, took a moment to convince himself he wasn’t hallucinating. Then, tentatively (expecting Yondu to leap from around the corner with arrow blazing, and holler “Gotcha!”) tried the cuffs.

Nope. They were locked. Of course, Yondu couldn’t go making this too easy on him, could he?

Peter glanced from under his sweaty fringe, assessing the seam of light that separated sleeping quarters from corridor. His eyes were gritty at the corners, having not had the chance to freshen up before his brusque reveille, and that headache throbbed away, timed to his racing pulse.

And Yondu had left the door open.

Peter counted his heartbeats, savouring the adrenaline surge. On three, he ran.

 

* * *

  

The  _Warbird_  cockpit sat elevated above the central vestibule, through which all passage to and from the airlock had to pass. Peter held his breath as he crept beneath.

Yeah, Yondu had as good as given him his blessing, but a wise Ravager never left things to chance. A wise Guardian neither.

He cast a final glance at the blue face reflected in the glass. Yondu made sure to scrutinize the controls – but when Peter lifted a hand and waved, showing the slipped cuffs, that blue was slit by yellow. Peter could imagine his voice in his head, claiming credit like he always did. 

_“So you listened when I taught ya how to get outta them. Thought you said you weren’t never going home, so ya wouldn’t need to know?”_

He made the grin mutual and crept into the rear bay. Of course, it was a shame he hadn’t been here long enough to badger Yondu into making him some of that soup-to-go – but it was too late to make demands.

There sat his pod, right where he’d left it. Battening unease at entering a snot saturated pod, Peter slithered inside and buckled up. First thing was first. He altered his signal output so that only the  _Milano_  could track him. Yet oddly, his finger paused over the button that would eradicate the pod’s beacon from the  _Warbird’s_  records.

When would he see Yondu next?

Oh, Peter didn’t doubt that he  _would_. He and Kraglin had been ousting mutineers since before Peter was a twinkle in his mysterious father's eye. Neither he nor the old bastard had ever been good at dying.

But Peter knew better than to expect clemency, next time he and Yondu met face-to-face. They’d be enemies, plain and simple. Peter the betrayer, Yondu the betrayed.

If there was one plus side to this trip (besides the lack of green gunge pouring from almost every orifice), it was that Yondu made it clear his anger would be feigned. Mostly.

Peter’s smile had yet to fade as the airlock slammed open and spat him and the decoy life-vessel into the Void. He was a pebble sinking through an endless black sea. The  _Warbird’s_  bulk hid him from above, and he’d be indiscernible from space-debris by the time momentum carried him beyond its shadow.

The emergency craft’s engines began to cycle hot orange gas. Although Peter was by this time spinning, tumbling in weightless silence, he rotated in time to witness the lightspeed drive kick in. It vanished in a blaze of silver.

In space, no one could hear you scream. They also couldn’t hear the ungodly amount of swearing issuing from Horuz’s M-ship, or Yondu’s equally venomous addendums. Yondu’s M-ship span on its axis and blurred into pursuit, Horuz’s not a moment after. By the time they caught up to the empty capsule, the Guardians would’ve collected their wayward teammate and they’d be well on their way.

Truly, thought Peter as his pod performed a lazy pirouette and bounced off an asteroid. Life could not get better.

Only as it turned out, it could. Because crammed into the footwell, banging his ankles every time he breathed, there sat a ginger troll doll astride a flask of soup.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Thank you so much for every comment/kudo!**

**Author's Note:**

> **Please comment!**


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